Adrienne Cuschieri Grooms

The best overarching advice I've received is to really do something that you love. We're going to be working for the majority of our lives, and we spend a lot of time at our jobs, so I'm very focused on ensuring that I am having a good time when I am working. I like to find joy in my days, joy in my work, and joy in my teams. Maintaining that joy is so important for the longevity of a career, which spans decades. You have to stay inspired by it all, and while not all of us are fortunate enough to do only passion projects, I think accepting the realities that work is, in fact, work, but there is joy to be found within it. If you get to the point where you're no longer inspired or able to source any kind of inspiration in the work you're doing, it's a good moment to think about new challenges. Beyond that macro advice, I've also received more niche advice about maintaining sanity in corporate America by being able to recognize what's important and what's not important, filtering through the noise to feel fulfilled in the work we do. It's important to maintain focus, maintain sanity, not sweat the small stuff, focus on the big picture, and ensure you're able to be yourself at work and bring your whole self to work.

Be true to yourself and feel confident in your voice. I think being yourself and sharing your voice is actually something that is really valued, much more than not sharing how you truly feel about things or not giving your real point of view. Being able to bring your full self to anything, how you think about things, and your POV on things is really important for younger women. Find value in what you're bringing to the table and know that it is valuable. Speak up and say what you believe, because people in the room need to hear it. I think that just empowers us along the way, feeling confident in our POV and what we bring to the table, and it goes a long way forever.

As a brand marketer, we're all essentially trying to fight for consumer eyeballs, dollars, and attention, but we're up against more than ever before. We're in a world where everything is branding, everything is marketing to us, constantly. There's nothing that is not some kind of capitalistic opportunity in front of all of us every day from the moment we walk out of our house or come back home. That's a real challenge we all have to think about all the time because we're up against more competition than ever before. The other major challenge is AI, which presents a whole new slew of what is to come. We're all just trying to prepare ourselves for it, prepare ourselves to be ready for that to be a big part of our jobs, ready to incorporate it into what we're doing, and ready for it to be a part of how we do our jobs because it's changing everything that we do. Between AI and the constant slew of brands and attention-seeking things we're all faced with daily, those are the biggest challenges for any brand marketer right now.

What drives me and what I value comes back to core tenets that I identified through a management building seminar we did at the office. Through those exercises, I discovered that for me, it came back to feeling like I am constantly growing and learning, and that I'm inspired by new things, new projects, new inspiration, new adventures, and new ways of expanding my skill set or my knowledge in certain areas. I am that same way both at work and out of work, always seeking new adventures and new ways of bringing happiness and joy into our lives by doing new things and experiencing new teams, new challenges, and new things we've never seen before. I carry that purpose both in work and out of work, finding joy in life through being able to explore and be inspired by new opportunities.